Laying the foundations

We started by getting rid of the invasive cooch grass.  For such a big area the only option seemed like a chemical one - glyphosate in a watering can. But it worked well and we have needed hardly any hand follow ups.  The verge is an island surrounded by concrete, so once the cooch is gone its unlikely to re-invade  (not quickly anyway).

We spread a layer of coarse mulch over the entire verge.  This was great stuff and supplied for free by the City of Fremantle as part of its verge beautification program.  Since then we've also used the Mulchnet free mulch and delivery service  and occasionally dug our own mulch from the depot opposite the Claremont Showgrounds .

We planted our first plants in December 2005.  Its not the recommended time of year (!), but all survived the long hot summer - no doubt partly because of the moisture retained by the mulch. 

In the beginning

The streets around our house in Fremantle have extremely wide verges.  Who knows why - perhaps something to do with the trams that used to travel past our house.

We moved in to The Blue House in the middle of 2004.  Here is a photo of what the verge consisted of.  Not much, and actually this is as good as it looked because its the middle of winter and the grass is actually alive and quite green.

Welcome to my native garden blog.

Our street verge garden is now in its fourth year, and plants like this Banksia ashbyi are starting to mature and produce some spectacular flowers.

Its hard to imagine that fewer than four years ago our street verge was totally empty except for a few dusty weeds, some scrappy cooch grass, and an old Eucalyptus tree.

Its now more like a woodland than anything else!  

The idea of this blog is to document that transformation. When I get a chance I will also record interesting goings-on on the verge and discuss what's worked and what hasn't.

I hope the pictures of the amazing plants that can be grown so easily will encourage you to reconsider the size of your lawn, to think about pulling out a few rosebushes and.... to go native!